The 2019 Locus Award nominees: your guide to the best sf/f of 2018

Locus Magazine has published its annual Locus Award finalists, a shortlist of the best science fiction and fantasy of the past calendar year. I rely on this list to find the books I've overlooked (so. many. books.). This year's looks like a bumper crop.

Now that the finalists have been announced, Locus subscribers and others can cast their votes; the awards will be presented in Seattle during a weekend-long event that runs June 28-30, MC'ed by Connie Willis.

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

• Record of a Spaceborn Few, Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager US; Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Calculating Stars, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
• If Tomorrow Comes, Nancy Kress (Tor)
• Revenant Gun, Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris US; Solaris UK)
• Blackfish City, Sam J. Miller (Ecco; Orbit UK)
• Embers of War, Gareth L. Powell (Titan US; Titan UK)
• Elysium Fire, Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz; Orbit US)
• Red Moon, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• Unholy Land, Lavie Tidhar (Tachyon)
• Space Opera, Catherynne M. Valente (Saga)

FANTASY NOVEL

• Lies Sleeping, Ben Aaronovitch (DAW; Gollancz)
• Foundryside, Robert Jackson Bennett (Crown; Jo Fletcher)
• The Monster Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson (Tor)
• Deep Roots, Ruthanna Emrys (Tor.com Publishing)
• Ahab's Return, Jeffrey Ford (Morrow)
• European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman, Theodora Goss (Saga)
• The Mere Wife, Maria Dahvana Headley (MCD)
• The Wonder Engine, T. Kingfisher (Argyll Productions)
• Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik (Del Rey; Macmillan)
• Creatures of Want and Ruin, Molly Tanzer (John Joseph Adams)

HORROR NOVEL

• In the Night Wood, Dale Bailey (John Joseph Adams)
• Unlanguage, Michael Cisco (Eraserhead)
• We Sold Our Souls, Grady Hendrix (Quirk)
• Coyote Songs, Gabino Iglesias (Broken River)
• The Hunger, Alma Katsu (Putnam; Bantam Press UK)
• The Outsider, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Listener, Robert McCammon (Cemetery Dance)
• Cross Her Heart, Sarah Pinborough (HarperCollins UK/Morrow)
• The Cabin at the End of the World, Paul Tremblay (Morrow; Titan UK)
• Tide of Stone, Kaaron Warren (Omnium Gatherum)

YOUNG ADULT BOOK

• The Gone Away Place, Christopher Barzak (Knopf)
• The Cruel Prince, Holly Black (Little, Brown; Hot Key)
• The Belles, Dhonielle Clayton (Freeform; Gollancz)
• Tess of the Road, Rachel Hartman (Random House)
• Dread Nation, Justina Ireland (Balzer + Bray)
• Cross Fire, Fonda Lee (Scholastic)
• The Agony House, Cherie Priest & Tara O'Connor (Levine)
• Half-Witch, John Schoffstall (Big Mouth House)
• Impostors, Scott Westerfeld (Scholastic US; Scholastic UK)
• Mapping the Bones, Jane Yolen (Philomel)

FIRST NOVEL

• Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi (Henry Holt; Macmillan)
• Semiosis, Sue Burke (Tor)
• Armed in Her Fashion, Kate Heartfield (ChiZine)
• The Poppy War, R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager US; Harper Voyager UK)
• The Quantum Magician, Derek Ki1/4nsken (Solaris US; Solaris UK)
• Annex, Rich Larson (Orbit US)
• Severance, Ling Ma (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)
• Witchmark, C.L. Polk (Tor.com Publishing)
• Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)
• Empire of Sand, Tasha Suri (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

NOVELLA

• The Black God's Drums, P. Djili Clark (Tor.com Publishing)
• The Tea Master and the Detective, Aliette de Bodard (Subterranean)
• "Umbernight", Carolyn Ives Gilman (Clarkesworld 2/18)
• Black Helicopters, Caitlin R. Kiernan (Tor.com Publishing)
• Time Was, Ian McDonald (Tor.com Publishing)
• Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, Kelly Robson (Tor.com Publishing)
• The Freeze-Frame Revolution, Peter Watts (Tachyon)
• Artificial Condition, Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)
• Rogue Protocol, Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)
• The Descent of Monsters, JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing)

NOVELETTE

• "The Donner Party", Dale Bailey (F&SF 1-2/18)
• "Okay, Glory", Elizabeth Bear (Twelve Tomorrows)
• "No Flight Without the Shatter", Brooke Bolander (Tor.com 8/15/18)
• The Only Harmless Great Thing, Brooke Bolander (Tor.com Publishing)
• "The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections", Tina Connolly (Tor.com 7/11/18)
• "An Agent of Utopia", Andy Duncan (An Agent of Utopia)
• "Queen Lily", Theodora Goss (Lightspeed 11/18)
• "Nine Last Days on Planet Earth", Daryl Gregory (Tor.com 9/19/18)
• "Quality Time", Ken Liu (Robots vs Fairies)
• "How to Swallow the Moon", Isabel Yap (Uncanny 11-12/18)

SHORT STORY

• "The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington", Phenderson Djili Clark (Fireside 2/18)
• "The Bookcase Expedition", Jeffrey Ford (Robots vs Fairies)
• "STET", Sarah Gailey (Fireside 10/18)
• "A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies", Alix E. Harrow (Apex 2/6/18)
• "Cuisine des Mi(C)moires", N.K. Jemisin (How Long 'til Black Future Month?)
• "The Storyteller's Replacement", N.K. Jemisin (How Long 'til Black Future Month?)
• "Firelight", Ursula K. Le Guin (Paris Review Summer '18)
• "The Starship and the Temple Cat", Yoon Ha Lee (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 2/1/18)
• "Mother of Invention", Nnedi Okorafor (Future Tense)
• "The Court Magician", Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed 1/18)

ANTHOLOGY

• The Best Horror of the Year Volume Ten, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Night Shade)
• The Book of Magic, Gardner Dozois, ed. (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)
• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-fifth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin's Griffin)
• Worlds Seen in Passing, Irene Gallo, ed. (Tor.com Publishing)
• The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018, N.K. Jemisin & John Joseph Adams, eds. (Mariner)
• Robots vs Fairies, Dominik Parisien & Navah Wolfe, eds. (Saga)
• The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year, Volume Twelve, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Solaris US; Solaris UK)
• Infinity's End, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Solaris US; Solaris UK)
• The Underwater Ballroom Society, Tiffany Trent & Stephanie Burgis, eds. (Five Fathoms)
• The Future Is Female!, Lisa Yaszek, ed. (Library of America)

COLLECTION

• The Tangled Lands, Paolo Bacigalupi & Tobias S. Buckell (Saga)
• Brief Cases, Jim Butcher (Ace; Orbit UK)
• An Agent of Utopia, Andy Duncan (Small Beer)
• How Long 'til Black Future Month?, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• The Dinosaur Tourist, Caitlin R. Kiernan (Subterranean)
• Fire & Blood, George R.R. Martin (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)
• All the Fabulous Beasts, Priya Sharma (Undertow)
• The Future Is Blue, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)
• Starlings, Jo Walton (Tachyon)
• How to Fracture a Fairy Tale, Jane Yolen (Tachyon)

MAGAZINE

• Analog
• Asimov's
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• Clarkesworld
• F&SF
• Fireside
• Lightspeed
• Strange Horizons
• Tor.com
• Uncanny

PUBLISHER

• Angry Robot
• Baen
• DAW
• Gollancz
• Orbit
• Saga
• Small Beer
• Subterranean
• Tachyon
• Tor

EDITOR

• John Joseph Adams
• Neil Clarke
• Ellen Datlow
• Gardner Dozois
• C.C. Finlay
• Jonathan Strahan
• Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas
• Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
• Sheila Williams
• Navah Wolfe

ARTIST

• Kinuko Y. Craft
• Galen Dara
• Julie Dillon
• Leo & Diane Dillon
• Bob Eggleton
• Victo Ngai
• John Picacio
• Shaun Tan
• Charles Vess
• Michael Whelan

NON-FICTION

• Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, Michael Benson (Simon & Schuster)
• Sense of Wonder: Short Fiction Reviews (2009-2017), Gardner Dozois (ReAnimus)
• Strange Stars, Jason Heller (Melville House)
• Dreams Must Explain Themselves: The Selected Non-Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin, Ursula K. Le Guin (Gollancz)
• Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing, Ursula K. Le Guin & David Naimon (Tin House)
• Old Futures: Speculative Fiction and Queer Possibility, Alexis Lothian (NYU Press)
• Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth, Catherine McIlwaine, ed. (Bodleian Library)
• Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Alec Nevala-Lee (Dey Street)
• None of This Is Normal: The Fiction of Jeff VanderMeer, Benjamin J. Robertson (University of Minnesota Press)
• An Informal History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards, 1953-2000, Jo Walton (Tor)

ART BOOK

• Yoshitaka Amano, Yoshitaka Amano: The Illustrated Biography - Beyond the Fantasy, Florent Gorges (Les iditions Pix'n Love 2015; Dark Horse)
• Spectrum 25: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, John Fleskes, ed. (Flesk)
• John Howe, A Middle-earth Traveler: Sketches from Bag End to Mordor (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; HarperCollins UK)
• Jeffrey Alan Love, The Thousand Demon Tree (Flesk)
• Simon Stilenhag, The Electric State (Fria Ligan '17; Skybound)
• Shaun Tan, Cicada (Lothian; Levine '19)
• Charles Vess, The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition, Ursula K. Le Guin (Saga)
• Michael Whelan, Beyond Science Fiction: The Alternative Realism of Michael Whelan (Baby Tattoo)
• Dungeons & Dragons Art and Arcana: A Visual History, Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson, & Sam Witwer (Ten Speed)
• Lisbeth Zwerger, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, J.K. Rowling (Levine)